


Relative Strangers

by JakkuCrew (fromstars), perlaret



Series: Poe DADmeron [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 00:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12096672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromstars/pseuds/JakkuCrew, https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: After defecting, Kylo Ren encounters a child on the Resistance base, and frankly, he isnotresponsible for this water bottle.





	Relative Strangers

Even in downtime, the Resistance base was too loud. People roamed the corridors at all hours, roving in undisciplined groups, their laughter and chatter echoing down the halls at irregular intervals. Aides bustled past in a hapless hurry, at odd paths with recruits rushing to sort out where they needed to be. There was both a fervor and a carelessness that struck Kylo as both uncomfortably familiar and unbearably odd.

He repressed the urge to sigh, glancing at the chrono set on the wall. Equally predictable, General Leia Organa was running late. Some routines never failed.

His leg twitched with unspent kinetic energy; he tapped his foot twice before forcing himself back into stillness. The small world contained in the Resistance based continued to rush back in unregimented eddies, disrupting the mental borders between conscious and subconscious awareness. An aide of some sort glanced at him through the transparisteel window of the General’s office as she passed, her eyes sliding over him like he was merely part of the scenery before moving on. Kylo wished, again, viciously, that he could recover his helmet, or else something like it, but it wouldn’t be welcome here. Still no sign of the General. He pressed his thumbs into the muscle of his thighs until it ached and sat.

The idea of leaving to make for his quarters was a nagging temptation. He did not, for he knew that would only cause more problems than solve them. Maker forbid he should step outside the carefully delineated parameters of the invisible prison formed around his return. Maybe _then_ they’d tell everyone who he _really_ was.

It was that uncertainty around his status that set Kylo on edge. He found himself involved in a delicate balancing act between Kylo Ren, the turncoat and valuable asset; and Ben Solo, wayward son and failed legacy of the Rebellion’s greatest heroes. Neither identity fit comfortably, leaving him somewhere adrift in between.

There were no anchors left for someone like him.

Another ten minutes passed before Kylo’s datapad chirped a brief message, reporting General Organa’s obvious delay. _Typical_ , Kylo mused, pushing his datapad across the small table before him. He might end up waiting for hours.

The thought held no appeal for him. He grit his teeth, torn between the customary tension between action and inaction. Kylo pressed the toe of his boot against the leg of the table, imagined shoving out and knocking it over, letting the anger and frustration flashing through him have outlet until it was spent. _Duty before sentiment_ , he reminded himself. He’d learned the lesson young, and not first from Snoke. The General had once said duty was the only thing that had kept her together, kept her her going, after Alderaan. Kylo’s closed his eyes and saw brilliant red; lead filled his veins. He wondered how many others could not--

A metallic thud shook Kylo from his thoughts. His eyes snapped open, head turning for the door, but the sound came again from the opposite direction, where there was only a wall… and a vent in the ceiling, which swung open with an abrupt clatter.

Kylo tensed and prepared to move to his feet, already leaning halfway over the table as he glared at the open vent. He calculated how much _defense_ he could get away with against an intruder, weighing just what the Resistance might consider appropriate initiative from their not-quite-prisoner, when the interloper made themselves known, a head poking downward into view.

It was– a human child?

Wide brown eyes in a small, upside-down face stared at him in surprise, and then in consternation.

“You’re _not_ the General!” the little girl declared, dark pigtails swinging over her ears.

“And that is not the door,” Kylo replied, finding his voice.

The child gave him an affronted look. “So?” she demanded with a huff. She pouted deeply, and Kylo watched, nonplussed, as she continued to dangle from the vent. And then she twisted, swinging forwards with a quick tumble. Kylo nearly winced as she landed on a set of cabinets under the vent with a clatter. It was more childish recklessness than acrobatic skill that fueled her movement, but she rearranged herself into a cross-legged position upon her perch with a confidence that suggested she’d done this before. She squinted at him, hands on her ankles. “What are you doing here?”

Kylo slowly sat back in his chair, regarding her with as much suspicion as she did him. What in the stars was a child doing, breaking into Leia Organa’s office? “I could ask the same of you.”

“Yeah, but I asked first,” she said. “An’ anyways I’m not s’posed to tell strangers things,” the girl declared, tugging on a wavy pigtail as she glanced about the room. When she stopped fidgeting, she glanced back at Kylo, raising her chin up defiantly. “I’ll tell on you if you don’t say,” she threatened.

“I’m not the one who broke into this room,” Kylo replied, frowning at the child. She frowned right back, her forehead wrinkling into to a stubborn visage.

He hadn’t seen many children on the Resistance base, but he supposed that as more refugees and idealists found their way to the planet, more children would arrive with them. Apart from her air of mischievousness, the girl before him had dark eyes – a birthmark on her upper left cheek, and a familiar aspect to her expression Kylo couldn’t quite place. A thin band of braid had been woven into her hair; it laid across the crown of her head and was bound into one of her pigtails. He’d seen the casual hairstyle before, in his past, infrequent trips to New Alderaan. Perhaps it was coincidence, but...

It was strange to realize that even all these years later, and despite many attempts to shed his familial ties, he could still recognize the braidwork of his heritage. The thought rankled as it turned over in his head.

“...I'm waiting,” Kylo elaborated with a sigh, realizing the foolishness of a battle of wills with someone’s brat, Alderaanian or otherwise. “For the General. What's your excuse?”

“Don’ need an excuse,” she declared. She squared her shoulders proudly. “I’m a very important person.”

“Is that so?” Kylo said, unimpressed. He wasn’t sure why he was even indulging this _kid_ in a conversation. As a rule, he preferred to avoid them; preference aside, he couldn't imagine any parent in their right mind wanting their brat around someone like him. But since he was still waiting, he supposed this was more interesting than watching his mother’s wall chrono. “I’ve never heard of you.”

“Well I haven’t heard of you either,” she retorted, squinting down at Kylo with an imperious expression. “...You’re not in a uniform like ev’rybody else, and you don’t gots a name tag.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest. “So whas’ your name? Are you a spy for the General?”

“Ky–” he began, then faltered. “I am Ben,” Kylo corrected unconvincingly. “I provide information.” Eager to avoid that subject, he continued, “You don’t have a name tag either. Who are you?”

“Nuh-uh!” the girl said, borderline gleeful. “I can’ talk to strangers.”

Kylo blinked once, then twice. “...We’ve been talking this whole time.”

The girl pressed her lips together pointedly and stared at him, suddenly wordless.

“I just told you who I am,” Kylo added, to no avail. He exhaled irritably after a long moment, remembering his pride and the fact he’d already decided that this was ridiculous. “Fine. Well. The General is probably not coming anytime soon, so you should probably go back into your vent and find your parents or something.”

“Tha’s no fun,” she said morosely, her commitment to silence abruptly forgotten. She then brightened. “Besides, I’m playin’ hide-n-go-seek!”

Kylo glanced again at the chrono above. He supposed he had nothing but time, at this point.

“Alright. With who?”

The girl narrowed her eyes, lips pursed as she regarded him. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes,” Kylo said. It was true enough. He doubted anything this child would consider worth keeping secret was of any value to him. She nodded once, apparently deciding to believe him.

“I gotta hide from a droid because he’s always talkin’ about boring stuff,” she said, slumping back against the wall with dramatic sigh. “Says I gotta know history.”

“Ah,” Kylo murmured. “So you’re avoiding...schoolwork?” he guessed, uncertain if the girl was old enough for such a thing. _Then again,_ Kylo thought, _he had been fairly young when his mother had first started his own schooling._ Her lessons had mostly been bearable, when she had the time for them, but more often than not, it had been one of her droids behind his lectures. A tedious affair, all of it.

“No!” she said, with an adamance that made Kylo doubt her honesty all the more. “Threepio is _extra.”_

Kylo paused, taken aback. “...Threepio?”

“He’s big an’ gold, and he is a big pain _in my ass!”_ the girl declared loudly, crossing her arms. “Also I already did all my homework.”

That almost startled a laugh from him, which was an unexpected feeling in and of itself. As it stood, Kylo could hear the change in his own voice – a genuine undertone of amusement. “And you thought the safest place to hide from Threepio would be at the General’s side? Doesn’t he work for her?”

The touch of humor aside, curiosity also suffused him, plucking at the fringe of his thoughts. Even in his own youth, Threepio had been the then-Senator’s right hand droid, involved in all of her incessant work and rarely employed as a nanny droid. Now, Kylo knew the droid to be a fully functional spy in his own right. What possible reason could have thrust this strange girl into Threepio’s clumsy care?

“...Yeah, but,” the girl started, furrowing her brow, “–he says it’s _impolite_ to interrupt meetings.” She explained seriously. “So if I interrupt a meeting, maybe then he won’t be rude an’ find me.”

The logic was… trackable. Still, there was a flaw in the child’s plan. “–It seems as if Threepio thinks you _would_ be rude enough to interrupt a meeting, so the best way to evade him is to not do that.”

“No,” she huffed, seemingly exasperated with him. “I’m telling you Threepio won’t interrupt the General’s meeting to e’splain he _lost_ me,” the girl said, biting back a smug grin. “Because it’s rude, an’ also he should’ve been more responsible.”

“I stand corrected,” he said. Judging by her spiritedness alone, whoever this girl was, Kylo could see why General Organa would take an interest in her. Before that thought could take a less charitable turn, the commlink on his datapad chirped again. He lifted it to read the text there and found his earlier suspicions confirmed. He flashed the screen towards the girl, hoping he was gauging her age correctly enough that she at least knew the rudiments of reading. “You’re in luck. Looks like the General will be in meetings for a couple hours more.”

“Oh,” she said brightly, leaning precariously forwards over her perch on the cabinet to look at the datapad’s screen. “Then I should go. I probably gots more time!” she added, before righting her balance and rocking back. She uncrossed her arms, and then pushed herself up to an upright position beneath the still open ceiling vent.

Kylo eyed the gap with a mind toward concern. It occurred to him that being found present at the scene if this girl were to misjudge the space and break a bone, or else come to some other harm in the mysterious vents she seemed so comfortable within, was not an outcome he found desirable. His position was already far too precarious.

“You could use the door,” he suggested, regretting the fact he had to care.

The girl gave him a reproachful look. “Yeah, but Threepio will be out there,” she scoffed. “I know what I’m doing,” she said, before pulling herself up towards the vent. She wobbled on tiptoe for a moment before she gained enough purchase on the inside of the passageway, then pulled herself up into the ceiling. Kylo let out a breath that, if ever pressed, he would not acknowledge he’d been holding.

“–Use the _door_ ,” her incredulous voice echoed from above, followed by a soft thump. Turned back around, the girl popped her head back out from the ceiling. “You’re not very good at being sneaky, Mister Ben.”

He stood, tilting his head. The girl looked quite at home, her arms folded in such a way to protect her chin from the metal edge of her perch.  “My options are limited,” he allowed. “I don’t think the ventilation system would fit me.”

“Oh,” she said. “No wonder you look so sad.” She paused, puffing up her cheeks in thought as she tapped the vent’s edge.

Kylo watched as she exhaled, and then nodded much too sagely for her age. “Well,” she said slowly. “My papa says if you don’t know if you can fly a run, that just means you gotta make it up as you go.” Then she paused, peering down at Kylo: “–basically you just gotta find the bigger vents. Or maybe explode them so you fit, like the X-Wing pilots do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kylo said, feeling the involuntary twist of his lips. He could only imagine what would happen if the notorious Kylo Ren was found trying to skulk around the Resistance base vents. Never mind what would happen if he returned to his erstwhile habits of deliberate property damage. Such was his lot; it was better to leave the rest to speculation. He sighed at the notion, glancing aside. Movement, a flash of gold on the other side of the transparisteel pane, caught his eye and he looked back to the girl with another jolt of amusement. “You’d better get going. You’ll get caught if you stay here too much longer.”

The girl yelped, pulling back from the opening in the ceiling. “Thank you stranger Ben!” she said, sliding the grate back into place. “Good luck being sneaky!”  

“And to you,” Kylo said, letting the strangeness of the encounter wash over him amidst the metal rattling. Shaking it off as the sounds of the girls retreat faded from the room, he made for the office door. It slid open and he stepped out, nearly bowling over an unsuspecting droid in the process.

“Oh dear. Oh dear. Master– Ben?”

Kylo barely repressed the urge to roll his eyes as Threepio stumbled haltingly out of his path. He strode forward, indulging the small, vindictive part of him that remembered a childhood full of annoyance spent in the presence of this very protocol droid. “Move.”

“Oh dear. Sir, is there any chance you’ve seen– _Sir?”_

Kylo turned the corner, leaving Threepio before he could finish his inquiry. It wasn’t his problem.

Neither was the girl.

 

-

 

The Resistance base was a maze of passages in places, but everything ultimately filtered into several main thoroughfares that connected the whole building from one end to the other. Kylo didn’t make it far in one of these very halls before he ran into someone else from his past. Poe Dameron.

Encountering Dameron was inevitable. It had already happened over the course of several Resistance meetings, which had remained mostly impersonal encounters after an initial confrontation. That didn’t make it comfortable to realize they were going the same way, falling nearly into step.

Kylo bit back the surge of ill-defined feeling in his chest when they made eye-contact.

“–Solo,” Poe said, curt. A regression from their last conversation, but it offered a bit of distance which Kylo was inclined to accept. One less person calling him ‘Ben’ was certainly a boon.

“Dameron,” he said, realizing a belated moment later he’d subconsciously matched Poe’s pace, which was notably faster than normal. Even with his own long stride, he was walking faster to keep beside Poe. “...Where’s the fire?”

“No fire,” Poe replied, without slowing. “...not that I’d expect you’d follow my orders if there was.”

He both sounded and _felt_ preoccupied. Kylo was intrigued; perhaps, for once, he could get some sort of explanation on what Resistance so-called emergency had waylaid the General this time. “You’ll manage. After all, you have plenty of other people to boss around,” Kylo replied, deliberately dismissive. “So if it’s not a fire, what is it this time?”

“...Yet another insubordinate,” Poe said, exasperation punctuating his words. The response surprised Kylo. He had no criticism to spare for the Resistance’s many minor failings, but he hadn’t expected one of the movement’s most ardent loyalists to admit to them, even if only in passing.  

Before he could consider this further, Poe cast Kylo a furtive look. He paused, as if to brace himself, and then Poe reluctantly added, “You haven’t seen a child around, have you?”

“A child?” Kylo repeated. He’d put the girl in the office out of mind already, as no explanations for the unusual meeting were immediately available. But the timing of Dameron’s question was too ironic to be coincidence, and the pronounced knit of his brow indicated true worry. Kylo hedged, “...A girl?”

“You saw her?” Poe demanded, finally slowing. “About this high,” he gestured, “Probably doing something she shouldn’t have been doing?”

“Something… like climbing through the base’s ventilation system?”

“Something exactly like that.” Poe grumbled. “–did you happen to catch which direction she was climbing in?”

“Away from General Organa’s office,” Kylo said. “And Threepio.”

Poe bit the inside of his cheek, and then turned away. “Of course. And Threepio was going which way?”

Kylo eyed him, his curiosity only growing. “Toward the General’s office, when I last encountered him.”

“Great,” Poe said, in a tone that intimated the exact opposite. “Hopefully that narrows the search down to only this side of the entire base.”

The interior base, sans its outer hangers and outside landing pads and training fields, ultimately was not that large. The Finalizer dwarfed it considerably. Kylo had been instructed not to use the Force as a condition of the official acceptance of his return. But so much of the Force was instinctual that he barely needed to think of his purpose before his mind was acting, expanding his awareness from what laid immediately before him to encompass what laid beyond. The knowledge came quicker than even Kylo expected; the child’s presence drew his mind’s eye almost immediately.

“That way,” he said, pointing right at an upcoming branch in the halls. He offered no further explanation.

“I–” Poe began, before falling short. An expression passed over his face that Kylo couldn’t quite place, and then just as suddenly as Poe had stopped, he began again. “–I won’t ask.”

Kylo couldn’t place it, not exactly. But he could guess.

Still, he found himself following when Poe adjusted his trajectory, moving in the direction Kylo had indicated.

“Who’s the girl?” Kylo asked after a moment’s awkward silence.

Poe’s shoulders tensed noticeably, inching towards his ears. “Her name is Kaera,” he said, moving closer to the inner wall of the hallway. As they passed a vent opening, he leaned in, listening for any movement coming from within.

“I see,” Kylo murmured. That was one question answered. “You know her parents?”

“...You could say that,” Poe answered, his gaze fixed on the walls of the hallway.

It’d been years, but Kylo didn’t need the Force to be able to tell when someone, when Poe Dameron especially, was evading a direct answer. “What does that mean?”

The question was met with a weary sigh. “Kaera is my daughter,” Poe explained. “And she is definitely going to be grounded for this.”

“...Daughter?” Kylo said, and this time he was well and truly taken by surprise. That explanation was not one that had even made the list. He felt the frown pull at his mouth. “But she’s– old.”

At this, Poe glanced over at him once more. “Did you talk to her–?” He asked, and then, deciding better of continuing that thought, changed tacts. “–She’s only six.”

“She was looking for the General,” Kylo explained. Then, unbidden, his steps slowed. He looked directly at Poe, his thoughts whirling as he put the various disparate details together. _“Six?”_

“It’s the number that comes after five,” Poe said cagily.

“...Seven years ago,” Kylo said, slowly, dwelling on every syllable so that there was no chance that Poe could mistake his words, “is when I left.”

And at that, Poe came to a dead stop, the warmth in his cheeks draining as Kylo stared him down.

“–Oh _hell,_ ” Poe said.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The next installment at last! Comments are greatly appreciated.


End file.
